If you haven't reviewed your business telephone bill recently, you may be very surprised to discover just how much you could be saving each month. No matter what your monthly cost, factoring in the incredible changes in telecommunications in the past few years alone, an analysis of your current bill will almost certainly reveal substantial savings. The fact is, most business owners don't have time to stay on top of these changes as fast as they occur, as this can be a time consuming and tedious undertaking.

Small and medium sized businesses often struggle with trying to keep IT costs down while growing business simultaneously. These companies are increasingly turning to cloud based services to achieve just that goal.

A recent report by O’Reilly Media shows SMB’s on average
save 30% on IT costs over a three year period when opting to employ cloud based services as opposed to on-site implementation. Another study performed
by KPMG shows that 81 per cent of businesses are either planning, are in
the early or advanced stages of experimentation, or already have
complete cloud implementations.

10% of SMBs are already
running all core IT services on the cloud and an additional 13% are
currently implementing plans to do so.

76% of business
leaders surveyed said economic factors were encouraging them to embrace
cloud-based technology, while 80% said they were looking to improve
processes, offering more agility across the enterprise.

There are numerous cloud based services available that integrate seamlessly with existing technologies, allowing for access to business critical email, documents and services from anywhere, on any device with a browser.

With IT services becoming more reliable and readily available in the cloud, these alternatives are now very attractive to decrease sometimes overwhelming IT costs, and to be more predictable and scalable. By migrating applications hosted in-house to services in the cloud, it becomes possible to better optimize the cost of software, paying only for whatever is used.

When transitioning services to the cloud, business owners can expect:

Lower implementation costs

Reduced time and cost of management

Enhanced team collaboration

Secure and readily available data storage

Access to that data from anywhere

All of these benefits allow you to stay focused on your core business, be more collaborative, and get your products/services to market sooner by leveraging a service infrastructure that was once available only to larger companies.

Dynamic Solutions Group, with service offerings in the areas of IT, Managed Services, Cloud Services, and Unified Communications almost certainly have a solution that can help your business succeed.

Contact Us today to see how we can help you take your business to new levels!

Password Management Software helps keep your personal information secure and helps save you time storing and remembering passwords for tens, or even hundreds of websites.

Password managers act not only as a storage mechanism for all your logins, but employ some of the most powerful encryption methods available to secure that information in a database, as well as during data transfer when logging into sites. As your usernames and passwords are stored by the password manager itself, most offer dynamic password generation to create sophisticated and complex passwords for sites, leaving you to only remember one master password to log into the manager itself. A dynamically generated password is nearly uncrackable by brute force password crack programs, as these programs are written to systematically attempt words from dictionaries, proper names, and lists of common passwords. Only when those options are exhausted, will these programs begin attempting random combinations of characters up to 8 or 9 characters. Password managers are designed to create dynamic passwords much longer and complex.

By installing the password manager on all your computers and devices, you will be able to log into sites without manual input, which will eliminate the possibility of a keylogger capturing your input. As logins are tied to specific URLs for future use, you'll be protected from logging into malicious phishing sites that otherwise look identical to your intended destination. Many password managers also include auto form-filling features, which can store all your pertinent contact information, which is needed to sign up for new sites. Not only will you once again avoid potential keylogging software from grabbing that info, you will save the time needed to sign up.

In the most recent 2012 Global Security Report published by Trustwave, findings show that once breaching a system via malware, or other means, 80% of security incidents in both large and small companies can be credited to the use of weak administrative passwords.

The study found that the top ten most widely used passwords within companies are:

Password1

welcome

password

Welcome1

welcome1

Password2

123456

Password01

Password3

P@ssw0rd

A password manager eliminates the need for using these easy to remember passwords in addition to the other security benefits listed above.

What to Look for in a Password Manager

Features: A good password manager will not only provide a means of storing login information, but also any information that would be required for signing up on a new site. Besides providing additional security, you will see a great deal of convenience in filling out forms.

Security: Make sure your password manager provides government level 256-bit AES encryption to protect your passwords. There are also DES and Blowfish algorithms. As long as you passwords are encrypted and not stored in clear text, they are safe.

Ease of Use: Your password manager should be able to sync all your data everywhere so you can access it anytime you need it. A good password manager will allow you to sign up on sites and login with very minimal effort.

A great free solution for password management is LastPass Password Manager. CNET and many others have given LastPass excellent reviews with CNET saying, “Password security and management have long been a deficient part of any browsing experience, and LastPass solves that problem while also making your passwords accessible anywhere. Cross-platform, cross-browser, and secure with a hefty range of options, this is the gold standard for password management.”

Are you using a password manager now? Which do you use? Let us know your favorites in the comments.